Home > Crime > Two Down, Four To Go In Torture Death Of Jennifer Daugherty

Two Down, Four To Go In Torture Death Of Jennifer Daugherty

September 1, 2012 at 2:54 pm by Morbid

GREENSBURG, PA – Back in 2010 we reported on the torture and murder of Jennifer Daugherty. She was a 30-year-old mentally disabled woman who was tortured to death by a group of people she considered friends. For 36 hours, she was held in a dingy apartment and tortured before she was stabbed to death.

While bound by Christmas decorations, Daugherty was forced her to eat feces, urine and detergent. She was repeatedly beat with a towel rack, a vacuum cleaner hose, and a crutch. Her head was shaved and her face painted with nail polish. After being forced to write a fake suicide note, she was stabbed to death. Her body was discovered stuffed in a trash can that had been wedged underneath a car parked in the parking lot of Greensburg Salem Middle School.

Eventually police would arrest six people in connection to Daugherty’s torture and murder. Amber C. Meidinger, 20; Melvin Knight, 20; Ricky V. Smyrnes, 23; and Peggy Darlene Miller, 27, were all charged with homicide, conspiracy and aggravated assault. Robert Loren Masters, 39, and Angela Marinucci, 17, were charged with criminal conspiracy.

Knight was interviewed by police within hours of Daugherty’s body being found. The interview was recorded and provided police, as well as the courtroom, with details of what happened to Daugherty in the hours before she was murdered.

According to Knight, Daugherty sealed her fate when she hit on Ricky Smyrnes in the apartment where some of the suspects lived. This angered his girlfriend, Angela Marinucci, so she and Amber Meidinger beat Daugherty’s head against a bathroom wall. The others then joined in on the beating, with Smyrnes beating Daugherty with a crutch, and Meidinger kicking and stomping on her stomach.

“Amber had stomped on her stomach and said, ‘Now you know how you feel when a pregnant woman gets punched in the stomach,’ and then I stomped on her stomach,” Knight said on the tape.

The court would also hear Knight detailing how they tied Daugherty up and forced her to ingest a drink that contained Meidinger’s feces, Marinucci’s urine, soap and oil. After complaining about stomach pains, Daugherty was given sleeping pills and antibiotics. During the subsequent beatings and humiliation, Daugherty begged her captors to let her go home. Knight said the group decided to kill her instead so she wouldn’t talk about what they had done to her.

“Ricky went and got a knife and told me to stab her,” Knight said on the tape. “I hesitated a little bit, and then I stabbed her in the chest three times. Then Ricky said, ‘Dang, the (expletive) is still alive,’ so I stabbed her again.”

Knight reportedly laughed out loud in court when this portion of the tape was played back in 2010. I bet he wasn’t laughing in November 2010, when the prosecution announced it was seeking the death penalty for Smyrnes, Knight and Meidinger.

In May 2011, Marinucci was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole. Since she was 17 at the time of Daugherty’s murder, she was ineligible for the death penalty. In April of this year, Knight pleaded guilty to first- and second-degree murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping. On Thursday, a jury voted to put Knight to death.

Daugherty’s family say that she had the mental capacity of a 12 – to 14-year-old and trusted everyone she met. This was apparent by one of Daugherty’s last Myspace status that stated, “this is my time to make a new start for myself, and making some new friends and not being afraid of anything, so this is going to be a good thing for me.”

So that’s two sacks of shit down and four sacks of shit to go. I thought this cartoon someone posted on my Facebook summed it up quite nicely.

Tags: Crime, Jennifer Daugherty, Melvin Knight, Murder, Pennsylvania, Torture

36 Comments

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Ellieface

It’s stories like this one that make me WISH we had “eye for an eye” punishment laws in this country. The death penalty is (in my opinion) getting these mother fuckers off easy. I hope all of them burn in hell.
Laura_RT

It never ceases to amaze me how cruel some people can be, especially in this case where the victim was mentally disabled… And why in the God’s name would they make her write a suicide note if they were going to stab her several times, not to mention move the body. Frickin’ idiots… So glad she’s getting justice now, here’s hoping the rest of them get the death penalty… It’s a damn shame the 17 y/o couldn’t get the death penalty too. Poor Jennifer, here’s hoping there’s a heaven where she won’t be exposed to sick bastards like these…
JGo555

Women that fight over men are not my cupa tea. Women that fight over POS men are disgusting. Women that beat & kill children and elderly and special people for MEN shouldn’t be alive.
Eliza Berntsen

It will never cease to amaze me just how many POS creatures there are. It’s not Jennifer that was disabled, but those “friends” of hers.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=718600192 Tim Bates

Life in solitary until death.
Eliza Berntsen

Preferably somewhere like Russia’s northern prisons, where it’s -50 in the winter and no electricity and in order not to freeze you need to chop wood or dig some coal.
Whatevn

Reading things like this just bring out the worst in me. I wish the family could see them in some pain for what they did to that poor girl.

How pitiful of a person can you be for getting paranoid someone with the mindset of a 12yo will steal your man?
newstarshipsmell

Angela (the 17yo) Marinucci’s lawyer was trying to get a retrial last fall:
http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/woman-convicted-in-greensburg-torture-slaying-asks/nGjXy/
Was that shot down or still ongoing while she serves her sentence?
BEastDuo

I’m very close with a woman who has the mental capability of a 15 yr old ( due to an accident that dealt with her head getting near crushed by a van), and a cousin who, at 25 has the mind of a 12 yr old (birth defect) So freaking glad I wasn’t in the court room for that, I would not be able to control myself from attacking those fuckers. Even just hearing someone insult one of them is enough to make me violent.
captaingrumpy

That is soooo bad. Are they all mentally deficit , they look like it. Act like it as well.
FrikkenFrak

Amen.
FrikkenFrak

I really resent having to provide three squares, clothing and shelter to these fucking animals.

Athena said something about the purpose of incarceration that was really well thought out but I’ve forgotten it now.

What is the point of prison? Is it to keep the animals away from us or is it to keep them from having freedom? Is it supposed to be punishment? If punishment is the purpose, I think it fails miserably. Why can’t we use torture again? Oh that’s right….the ACLU.

Have I mentioned I’m in favor of the death penalty?
ShelbySP

Wow. I’ve said before that I’m against the death penalty, I always will be. But since we don’t have gulags (or Siberia) here, this is as close to justice as we’re gonna get.
FrikkenFrak

Interesting…..why does the word “parent” show up alongside my name when I post? When did that start?

Also interesting….when I Googled “Dreamin Demon” and it comes up on the Google search page, this is how it appears:

The Dreamin’ Demon
http://www.dreamindemon.com
THIS SITE MAY BE COMPROMISED.

So….what’s going on with the site that Google says it’s been compromised. Malware? I’m a Mac so I worry less about those things than when I used a PC and I have loads of protection, but still. What the heck!
Sorrow_discord

It was denied

http://triblive.com/news/1895401-74/marinucci-daugherty-hathaway-trial-masters-meidinger-murder-prosecution-smyrnes-testimony#axzz25HQAhYxu
Snickering x Hydra

Not to judge them based only on their appearances, but I don’t think I’d want to ever count any of those people as my friends. Just how “friendly” could they be with this woman? More likely they “tolerated” her presence while taking advantage of her at every turn.

It’s incredibly sad that this happened to a woman who had already faced so many hardships in her life.
http://twitter.com/butts6954 Kevin Butler

Hang ‘em high man…
JohnQknowitall

Man…

I try to think of any group of friends I had in hs or college that I would have gone this far when upset with someone, but I cannot even think of friends who would have gone that far. WTF kind of people are these people?

When reading murders and other crimes here and elsewhere I like to wonder about the thoughts and motives behind the crime. I don’t always like the conclusions and this time I just cannot figure out what took something that should have been mildly embarrassing to a horrifying 36 hour torture-fest culminating in a horrible stabbing death.

I don’t like the death penalty in the least (don’t argue, we won’t change each other’s mind), but I don’t feel sorry for Knight and even that doesn’t bother me… maybe I am tired.
JohnQknowitall

I thought the same thing. These people were using her for money or whatever other resources that could be taken from her. I am surprised she wasn’t raped or previously used for sex.
skowhegan_scott

When does a little harmless flirtation ( if that’s what really happened , which I sincerely doubt ) warrant being degraded ,tortured and murdered by a vile ,sadistic ,sub-human pack of jackals ? It doesn’t . IMHO it was merely a pretense to brutalize a weaker more vunerable target than themselves for their own perverse gratification and amusement . The fact that degenerate pieces of shit like this have more rights than their victim in particular or law-abiding citizens in general makes me want to fucking puke . I weep for humanity when I read stories like this . I weep because despite the fact we live in a world of unequalled scientific advancement , in a country of relative prosperity , and with the potential of so much greatness yet we elect to behave like animals while living like royalty . If we were living in a more rational society we would drag these evil depraved motherfucking bottom feeding cocksmokers out in the middle of the street and shoot all six of them in the fucking head instead of housing and feeding them on the taxpayer’s dime . It’s a shame this case will just continue its slow grind through the legal system for years to come while this poor woman only got 36 hours to live before they ruthlessly slaughtered her . Is that JUSTICE ? Been reading this site for a while , but after reading this had to post something .
http://www.facebook.com/robert.lacour.9 Robert LaCour

I cant believe what i just read, fucking animals
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=534902588 Meli Machiavelli

I just …
I just want to grab all of them by the shoulders and shake. Shake them vigorously until their brain bleeds out of their ears. Jennifer may have had the capabilities of a 12 – 14 year old. But she was clearly more intelligent then these six shitbags.
Looking at the picture of the 17 year old girlfriend. How INSECURE must you be to be afraid of a mentally challenged girl possibly taking your boyfriend?
Absolutely disgusting, I hope they experience the worst of the prison system before the get strapped to the chair.
newstarshipsmell

“parent” is just a link to the “parent” comment, when you reply to someone else (notice that there is no “parent” next to the primary comments’ usernames/timestamps.) If you mouse over the “parent” it will pop up the parent comment’s account name/avatar and a pitifully short preview of their comment, and if you click on it, the page will jump back up to that comment. It’s useful for the really convoluted threads. You aren’t the first person to wonder about it, though. Someone else was asking how the site knew which users were parents, which was pretty fucking hilarious.

As far as the Google warning, it’s just an automated warning message based on malware analysis, not an actual determination of the presence of malware by their security experts:
““This site may harm your computer” warning
To be clear, when our malware detection system classifies a site as potentially hosting malware, we show a “This site may harm your computer” message. When we believe a site may be hacked or compromised but have not detected malware, we display “This site may be compromised” as an alert. In both cases, our detection might not be perfect — we continually work on improving our system — but it would be wise to proceed with caution.”
http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ei=tMFDUOnpJciFqQHa8ICACA&answer=190597&?sa=X&ved=0CCIQpwgwAA
So the warning is the latter, meaning they have not actually detected malware on the site. It’s probably just registering a false positive against one of the numerous advertising scripts running on the D’D (there’s 14 of them, including Disqus, which also doubles up as a commenting system.) I’ll email Morbid and bring it to his attention, in case he doesn’t see this thread and cares to have them sort it out.
Athena

My opinion about incarceration is that there are two ways to look at it: Punitive vs. preventive. I happen to prefer we look at it as preventive. Justice is a relative word. It can be moral righteousness or it can be equitable consequence. Both are quite relative things themselves. Moral righteousness means a million different things to a million different people, and equitable consequence is simply impossible to meet in a case like this. We simply cannot, nor should we want to, mirror the level of viciousness exhibited by these perpetrators. On a side note, it is the Constitution, not the ACLU, that prohibits torture. The ACLU simply aims to enforce the protections granted by the Constitution.

The relative nature of punitive justice is why I believe it to be most socially beneficial to focus on preventive justice. This gives us goals based on quantifiable data. How can we best prevent this individual from damaging society in the future? Sure, the death penalty is one option, but it is expensive and leaves absolutely zero room for error, should someone get wrongly convicted. LWOP is every bit as affective, but it’s also cheaper, allows for correction of wrongful conviction and, if structured properly, could provide the opportunity for convicts to pay for their stay (via prison labor). It doesn’t make my heart as happy as the thought of executing guilty murderers, but the purpose of the justice system is not to make our hearts happy. The purpose is to protect the populace. So, it just makes sense to me that we do so in the most fiscally responsible, socially responsible way possible.
http://www.facebook.com/steve.p.davis.1 Steve Paige Davis

Well, if the reports published in the paper are true all 6 of these creeps have been put in isolated areas of the jails they are being held in not because of threats from outside forces but from other prisoners. People that torture and kill disabled people are only a wafer thin mint above pedos in jail. The girl who got life is going to have her ass handed to her every day for the rest of her life. The ones who get death have nothing to look forward to but endless appeals they won’t win-then they’re toast. Can you imagine the kid those two are going to have-both parents are murdering psychos!
gosuYanny

I didn’t even know people still used myspace.
velvetjoneslives

Same here. I’m generally opposed to state sanctioned death penalty, but I have no sympathy for these scumbags. They should be let of jail so some reason “justice” can be delivered to them.
http://www.facebook.com/bill.gordon.568 Bill Gordon

Today’s children, Dont ya just love em. Kids probably never disaplined a day in their lives and now everybody is saying , what happened, they are such good children. commit the crime, do the time. I’d like to strap them on the gurney. Like it been said before, i hope they burn in hell.
supreme321

We don’t have to a monster to deal with a monster. But I agree it is a shame that he’ll have to leave years until the sentence is carried. Even though he has confessed to the crime and there is no doubt that he did it. In china you only have one month of life, and that is it. I’m just saying.
skowhegan_scott

Not only that but also the fact there will be more than likely numerous delays via legal motions and/or assorted bureaucratic bullshit before the other four murderers even set foot in the courtroom , the very opposite of a “speedy trial ” . That is why we have a legal system ,a system of laws , as opposed to an actual justice system in this country . The system is broken beyond all repair and is woefully inadequate when dealing with even the most heinous of offenses such as this , leading only to a prolonged protracted ordeal for the victim’s loved ones , It is tragic Ms. Daugherty was unable to achieve the goal she set forth in her MySpace status due to the most cruellest of betrayals by her so-called “friends” . Hopefully the “just us ” system will not betray her as well , because when the system fails one of us it fails us all .
brandi

i really really wish that we could all shit and piss in containers, and have the courts agree to force feed it to them in jail while wrapped in christmas lights, with a star on top of their heads, while all the inmates kick and pucnhed them in the stomach, before stabbing them with a shank….. now that’s justice!
http://www.facebook.com/michael.roe.397 Michael Roe

Please just drop these assholes off at my house.Cause what i would do would make them wish they were never born. They should have their eyes cut off and fed to them. Or cut their guts out and make them eat it like spaghetti. BASTARDS!!!!!!
pikeman

I like the eating their guts like spaghetti part. There’s no harsher justice on DD than the justice of Michael “Death Row” Roe!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1106642961 Alice Hennen

What was a 17 year old doing with a 23 year old in the first place? She’s not even legal to drink yet!
pikeman

I saw something about this on television some time ago. It’s horrible, I wish the worst for these fucks who did this to her. She just wanted some friends and she was mentally slow. It’s really sad.
Operation Plumbbob

..because a boyfriend is so worth torturing, murdering and going to prison forever over.

Marinucci is a double-winner since she doesn’t even get to be with the guy she did this over. Poetic justice.